our very own, vinnie lacey

i feel like i am about to do something really weird

like give away everything i own, including my hair, and join a sun worshipping cult in the weird new age-y part of arizona. and then two weeks into it realize that i am miserable and bald and want to go back to my old life but i can't because i gave all of my money away so i'm forced to live in a women's shelter in tucson where a lady punches me in the mouth for my ipod nano that is like two years old anyway, and knocks out all of my teeth. and the next time abby and sarah come to visit chicago they will find me face down in a trash can with my legs sticking up in the air, and it won't even be my first day of crazy.

i want to live in poemland

I spent a couple hours today reading Chelsey Minnis's Poemland. The reasons I love Chelsey Minnis are sort of endless. Here are some:

1. I can read her books straight through; I can fly through her books; usually I make it to page 5 of anyone's poems and feel tired and like I need to take a break or enter a coma. But I can eat Chelsey's poems one after another. They are light like rice cakes. They are delicious like rice cakes aren't. You do not feel heavy after eating 126 of them.

2. She has planned and bought the most awesome "death outfit" ever: "White boots, tan suit, orange shirt and pink necktie." She should probably design a line of death outfits. People's death outfits are usually so bland and awful.

3. She can write so accurately about how awful it is to write things. "Poetry is like waking up drunk in a lemon yellow room," or "If you want to be a poem-writer then I don't know why...It hurts like a puff sleeve dress on a child prostitute," or "With my poetry I want to barricade myself from other people's poetry..." I hate when writers write about writing, unless they are Chelsey.

4. "I am so drunk I'm seeing toy bats"

kumquats are the stupidest fruits

They look like they are going to be awesome and interesting because they are very small and also have a weird name. They are like the tiniest oranges. They are like grape oranges. But they are sour, and their rinds are thick. Nothing can be done with them. Also, I am not sure if you are supposed to eat the rind. Kumquats need a new packaging designer.

Pinch Punch Ch. 5: New Rule: Plus-sized Models Clause

Ch. 1 here
Ch. 2 here
Ch. 3 here
Ch. 4 here

Only four (4) plus-sized models are permitted in The Pinch Punch at any one time. If you see a new plus-sized model at Entry Day ceremonies and her hair is the same color as yours, you have the following options:

1. Knit your contraband jump ropes (eyes in the back of my head) into a ladder. Attempt escape.
2. Dye your hair (NOTE: Ash-blonde and blonde are the same color. Black and blue-black are the same color. Red and auburn are the same color. Brown and dishwater are the same color. As is chestnut.)
3. Use your switchblade in any way you see fit (NOTE: I am not encouraging, or even condoning, violence).
4. Sex-change operation.

NOTE: Hair-dye option is included so that you may face off with the least burly of the plus-sized models admitted.

NOTE: There is no such thing as a male plus-sized model.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Four new plus-sized models have been admitted to The Pinch Punch! See TYRA for your sex-change operation today!

Crotchety old man post

I hate Twitter. I hate that when I was watching the Miss USA pageant last night, Miss Teen USA was live-twittering. I hate that the word "twitter" appeared at least 25 times in the OK Magazine that I impulsively bought. Then this morning while driving to driving to work I listened to a story about how Twitter is both helping and hurting traditional journalism.

This is a new development, this Twitter over-exposure. It happened yesterday. I hate Twitter.

It's the enormous eye thing

So, it took me forever to figure this out, but the reason that I'm rooting for Allison so hard on America's Next Top Model is that I think she looks like our own Katerina. There are the enormous eyes, the pillowy lips, the thing where everybody thinks she's totally the sweetest person on earth because of her enormous eyes when she really draws pictures of Tyra with her nose bleeding.

Donald Barthelme, you're dead but I still have a serious crush on you.

Oh Donald Barthelme, you are dead. Dead and you look just like an Amish cowboy hijacker/bomber. Still, you are my celebrity crush of the moment. I have just re-read your brilliant story "The Balloon," which is so brilliant and lovely, which is a picture of your captivating brain, which I cannot wait to put on display for my students tonight, who will never, ever understand "The Balloon" or your captivating brain, and will therefore have to complete what I'm calling a "Postmodern Scavenger Hunt" in order to sort-of understand it. I think you would love a postmodern scavenger hunt, Donald Barthelme, and I wish you could create one for my students instead of me, because it would be way better, and then they would love you like I do, dead and Amish as you are, and we would all climb the balloon together just as it crosses 47th street, and there would be quiet applause for us from like 3 people.

Harmless vandalism

There have been three (3) occurrences of harmless vandalism at our house since we've moved in. I am recording them here just in case the next step is breaking in to our house and tickling us until we cry, or something.

1. The fuck balloon: Sometime in late August/early September we awoke to find a partially deflated pink balloon on which someone had written the aforementioned naughty swear in large block letters tied to the ironwork on our porch. It was creepy.

2. The open but mostly full Coke can: About a month ago we found the aforementioned object propped on our garbage can against the house, almost as if someone had been casually leaning there, looking in our window, sipping away. Also creepy.

3. Spray paint stain: When we came home last night someone had spraypainted something on our porch. There was white around a negative space corner. There was a spot of white on our railing, too. Very very creepy.

Who is doing this? Who? And why?

She is in the air right now.

I Am In the Air Right Now from Greg Lytle on Vimeo.

Returning to our original vision

Amazon just informed me that Stacey Levine's new book will be arriving in my mailbox on or around 5/6/2009.

We haven't had an official book in a while. This book should be our official book.

Yes?